The All Things Risk Podcast

The All Things Risk podcast explores the themes of risk, uncertainty and resilience as applied to sports, the arts, current affairs and just about any other domain. We feature long-form conversations with interesting guests who have loads of fascinating stories, tips and tools.

We have released this episode right in the middle of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. You might love football (and you may call it “soccer”). You might revel in Lionel Messi’s unbelievable skills or Cristiano Ronaldo’s athleticism (even though both are now gone from the tournament). Perhaps you play the game. Perhaps your children do. Maybe you support your local club side, one of the big European teams, or both. Your national team’s performance might have a lot of meaning for you.

Conversely, you might not care about the game at all. You might be appalled by the amount of money in it, or the fact that people spend far too much time obsessing over it. You might be all of the above.

Regardless, what is often called “the people’s game,” or “the beautiful game,” has a very dark side. It is a side that you should know about because it affects our world. That side is corruption, which we talk about in this episode.

Red Card is an enthralling account if the FBI’s investigation into FIFA, football’s global governing body, arguably the most powerful institution in all of sports. The book shows the greed, arrogance and self-interest of those who ran the sport for decades, and how a determined investigation brought this small cabal to justice. It is also a book that asks questions about the role of big money and politics in sport, including geopolitics.

We get into that and more, including:

How the book came about;

How FIFA’s structure facilitates corruption, including why that structure has similarities with organised crime syndicates;

How the money flowed and how the corruption worked – and very plausibly, how it still might be working today;